Well Met(12)

My eyes widened. “There’s another one?”

Chris laughed. “Oh, honey, there’s tons of them! Maryland’s one of the biggest in the country; they even have permanent structures they keep up year-round. We’re small potatoes—tiny potatoes, even—compared to them. But we do our best and take it seriously, and so we’ve gotten a reputation as a solid smaller Faire. And of course there’s the educational aspect. The kids participate in a living history project where they can demonstrate their knowledge to paying patrons while wearing period costumes, and it doesn’t feel like learning.”

“Wow.” I took a sip of coffee. “I have to say I didn’t think of it like that.”

“It’s all right.” She shrugged. “Not everyone does. And you’re new around here, so you haven’t seen it grow gradually like we have. Sometimes I remember the early years, when the whole thing took place on the high school football field.” The bell over the front door chimed, signaling a new customer in the shop, and she came out from behind the counter to head to the front of the store. “Very different than being out in the woods.” She continued our conversation as she walked, so I followed.

“The woods?” I remembered now how Stacey had mentioned the site at one rehearsal, and I had no idea what she was talking about, or where I was going to be spending the rest of my weekends this summer. “We’re going to be in the woods?”

“Ohhhh. You haven’t seen the site yet?” Chris chuckled when I shook my head. “Can’t wait to see what you think.”

“What who thinks?” A new voice came from the front of the shop and as I rounded the corner behind Chris I bit back a sigh. Simon. Great. I took in his jeans and button-down shirt and wondered if he owned a pair of shorts. Unlikely. He didn’t even dress down at rehearsals on Saturdays. But he wasn’t wearing a vest, so this had to be a casual day for him.

He blinked when he saw me, his dark brows drawing together in a frown, so he was obviously as thrilled to see me as I was to see him. His green shirt was open at the throat, and I could see the neckline of a white undershirt in the V. This man wore a lot of layers. Clothing as armor. What was he protecting?

If Chris noticed any tension between us, she blissfully ignored it as she gestured in my direction. “I was telling Emily about the site. She didn’t know we were going to be out in the woods.”

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow. I hated people who could do that. Mostly because I couldn’t. “What do you think?”

“I think it sounds great.” I would have crossed my arms, but there was a very real danger I’d spill my coffee if I did. “I was a Girl Scout. Camping was my favorite. I don’t have a problem with the outdoors.” Why? Why did I say that? I was a Girl Scout, sure. But I’d faked having the flu to get out of going camping, because the idea of sleeping on the ground, where there were bugs . . . I suppressed a shudder. But Simon had challenged me, and if he thought I was going to back down, then he didn’t know a thing about me.

He nodded once. “Good.” A slightly awkward silence stretched between us, and he opened his mouth as though he were going to say something else, but instead turned to Chris.

“I wanted to make sure you had everything I ordered. For the summer reading lists?”

“Oh. Yes.” She moved behind the front counter and woke up her laptop. “I placed the order last Monday, and I got about half of them in yesterday. Should be getting the rest . . .” She tapped a few keys and squinted at the screen. “Looks like tomorrow. So I’ll get the display up by this weekend.” She shrugged. “No one’s asked about them yet, so you should be okay.”

“I’m not surprised.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “The school year just ended. The last thing these kids are thinking about is next fall.”

“You’ve always got one or two overachievers in your AP classes, though.” She tapped some more keys, bringing up another screen. “Oh, wait. They sent a different edition of Pride and Prejudice than the one you asked for. Let me go get it and make sure it’ll work. I can exchange it if you need me to.”

She bustled into the back room of the shop, and Simon and I stood in silence for a few excruciating moments. I searched desperately through the corners of my brain for something to talk about, before settling on the most obvious.

“What are you assigning the kids to read? I mean, besides Austen.”

Thankfully he seized on the topic. “Mostly classics. But attention spans are short in the summer, so nothing too taxing. I also throw in one or two more recent books, so they don’t think I’m stuck in the nineteenth century.” He offered me a tentative, closed-mouth smile, and I grabbed it like a lifeline.

“So what’s this year’s modern book? Nineteen Eighty-Four? That’s always a safe choice.”

“It is.” He nodded. “But I went even more modern. Have you read Station Eleven?”

His tone of voice said that he expected me to respond with a confused look and shake of the head, so it was nice to surprise him. “I have. I read it in college.” Back when I’d had time to read for fun, which felt like a hundred years ago. I shook off the thought. “Huh. That book’s about Shakespeare too, in a way. Sort of a theme with you, isn’t it?”